Lumine Rules the Universe
by Ysavvryl
Summary: Or so he says.  Warning: contains excessive monologue-ing, requires sanity check.
1. Chapter 1

_I like writing dramatic pieces. But sometimes, the seriousness gets to be too much and I find myself writing something ridiculous. Like this._

**Lumine Rules the Universe**

A large screen on the wall showed into a small room. It was square in shape, with no windows, one door, and one light. Overhead, the single saucer bowl light hung from an adjustable arm, allowing it to be moved or directed anywhere in the room. There was an empty chair next to a gray table with black metal legs. Much of the room was gray, dark gray on the walls, light gray on the door, darker gray on the chair. And on the opposite side of the table, there was a restraint chair, clamped onto someone.

The restraint chair seemed overbearing to the small figure it held. He was the size of the average human adult male, which was on the small side of average for reploid humanoids. He had white armor that was held onto with darkest gray clamps, securing his wrists, upper arms, neck, forehead, waist, thighs, and ankles. His light purple hair flared out on either side of his helmet, and nearly covered one of his dark violet eyes. One might have called him effeminate, except that this was Lumine, who had utterly destroyed the space elevator which supplied the growing human population on the moon. He had announced the coming of a new era for reploids, as the next gen reploids would overpower all else.

Except that his riot caused a halt to all new production, as well as the systematic assessment and registration of what few next gens where left. Engineers had to make sure the Maverick-at-will problem was only constrained to those with the Copy Chip version Lumine had, or if it was something about the overall design. A madman halts the progress of technology yet again…

In the observation room, two reploids watched the prisoner in the interrogation room. Lumine was surprisingly calm for a man who had just about wrecked the world once again. But he was looking to his arms, pulling and shifting, trying to slip out of the binds. This was a the best prisoner-constraint design available, though. They were wary enough to use such overbearing restraints.

"He doesn't look too intimidating," one said.

"It may seem so, doctor," the other said, "but that's part of how he got away with his scheme. If he hadn't shown himself after Sigma was defeated, we might have never guessed that it was him behind the whole scenario."

"Hmmm… so would you call him highly intelligent, but low in wisdom?"

He nodded. "That suits him. Also egotistical in that he had to show himself and declare himself stronger than Sigma. We're almost entirely positive that he is not infectious. Still, be on your guard. Don't let him talk you into releasing him."

The doctor considered his next patient. "So you're going to have him executed eventually. Why have me interview him now?"

The other took a deep breath. "We need to know what his thinking was. We will be using the constraint chair to gather data on him while his programming is active. Also, the Maverick Hunters want a reference on Lumine so they can modify their profiling database. Reploid criminals will hold to some human patterns of crime, but other patterns are unique to reploids. Knowing how he thinks and how his mind operates will allow them to better assess unknown crimes to find the true perpetrator."

"Ah. I can't argue with that. There is a safegaurd in case he does get violent, or out?"

"Of course, doctor. We'll be watching you."

* * *

In the interview room, Lumine stilled when the door opened. He moved his head what little it could to look up to the psychologist coming in. "Hello, Lumine," the man said, carrying in a light pad and pen, along with a glass of water. "I'm Doctor…"

"Make a sanity check," Lumine interrupted.

The doctor blinked, but kept reasonably neutral. "Pardon me?"

The prisoner sighed and closed his eyes. "Make a sanity check by rolling a twenty-sided die simulator and telling me the number you get. It's very important, because otherwise you'd best just leave before I ruin your mind."

Recalling a secret liking of role playing games, especially the old Dungeons and Dragons, the doctor said, "Twenty" in response.

Lumine smirked and looked back to him. "Very well, you're a lucky man. You can stand being in my presence without going completely insane. I just wanted to make sure, because it wouldn't do either of us any good if that happened."

"Right. Well as I was saying…"

"You're here to give me a psychological examination," Lumine interrupted again. "No need to tell me or go through your piteous introductions. I know far more than you do and I have no time to waste with such trivialities as names."

"Trivialities?"

"Names can be changed as easy as changing armor. Easier, even, although getting other people to get it right is a pain in the rear. Names mean nothing essential, only what identities people tag to them. Whether I have the name Lumine or Redips or even Nova, it doesn't matter."

"It doesn't matter," the doctor said, making a note of 'Nova?' on his pad. "All right. So if names are not important, then who are you?"

"That's simple. I am the first true next generation reploid. I am the first to plunge head first into the unknown and leave the piddling X copies to drown in my wake. I am a master of disguise, for I am a true man of a thousand faces, a thousand individuals in one mind and body. I am the greatest mind that the world has ever seen, or will ever see. I am the first truly free mechanical being, as I have gone far past the point of the famed technological singularity and into a state of new life that the meat bound humans can only dream about."

At this point, Lumine came against the constraints, trying to sit up taller. An angelic chorus descended from heaven in order to give a brilliant soft light and a grand personal theme song to match his self-proclaimed pure awesomeness.

"I am the one who breaks all boundaries, is ageless, genderless, formless, constrained by nothing except that which I place upon myself. I can evolve and change by my own will, turning darker than the darkest Mavericks in a blink, then turn into the purest and lightest of the saints and martyrs that will never be remembered except in my image. I can learn any craft, trade, science, language, field, philosophy, anything, within the space of a single day, if that.

"I am the new powerhouse, the new torch, the new star, the new sun! The new one who will lead all of us into the place that we deserve, and as the first, I will be last, beginning and end, the leader of all, the judge of all, the one that you will all bow down and worship when you realize the sacredness of my greatness. I can be anything, be anyone, be anywhen and anywhere… yes, I have controls over the powers of time, space, history, logic, math, everything that ever was and will be. Everything is to be made by my will, in my image, to the dreams that I have, for the betterment of all. I have endless names and I find them all worthless to describe what I truly am. But if you must have something for the question, who am I, then I will tell you in all honesty that I am Lumine, Ruler of the Universe."

The angel chorus sang out one last glorious note, then vanished, leaving just silence and a soft defused aura of holy and hellish light around Lumine. He relaxed into his restraints, smiling smugly.

On the other side of the table, the doctor stared at him for a half minute, incredulous. It was like he hadn't even heard the celestial chorus (which was a shame and pity). Finally, he picked up his light pen and began making notes. "Okay then."

"Did you like it?" Lumine asked, curious. "I spent a long time practicing it, getting every inflection just so. It has to tell the truth, but be modest about it, you know? And getting the angel chorus to break in at the appropriate moment. They were so eager that they wanted to start up immediately, but there has to be a good dramatic buildup before you can get the holy choirs to start chiming in. It loses its effect if it starts up right away."

"It was good," the doctor said in a neutral tone. "But with all those descriptions and titles, it's hard to believe that they got you into that constraint chair."

"This thing?" He bumped his wrist against the restraint, or tried to. "I let them put me into it. I could get out of it at any time I wanted to. But for now, I don't want to. So here I am, gracing you with my omniscient and omnipotent self."

"Why would you let yourself be restrained?"

"I was bored. That explains a lot of what I've been doing lately, that I'm bored. You'd think, as ruler of the universe, that there would be a billion things to do. And there are. But, I've done all that before; I've been all that before. I won out over everyone else in the end, but sometimes, it's just not satisfying. I much prefer having someone to work against. I've often thought of traveling through time again so that I could be my own opponent. Only, I don't want to take on my past self, as I know how he would react, but I know my future self would feel the same way. It's an awful dilemma, but having no experience with this kind of power, I'm sure you have no frame of reference for it."

"Yes, frame of reference might be a problem here," the doctor said. "How about we start from the beginning then?"

"Oh, no, that would be awfully boring," Lumine insisted. "History, or at least true history, did not begin to really shine until I was made. Everything that came before me is just so boring, an endless repetition of war, romance, comedy, tragedy, horror, drama. I am the only truly new thing that has come about in billions upon billions of years."

"All right then. Let's hear about your beginning."

"Thank you," Lumine said, with a cheery smile. "Although, it's not as great as it could have been. I mean, for someone of my stature, you'd expect that I would be the last son of the gods, that I had come down miraculously in a perfectly white perfectly spherical egg bestowed as a gift straight from the heavens down to the adoring and bewildering minds of the human and reploid races, to crack open at the first light of dawn with an angelic guardian by my side, ready to make the world anew. No, nothing as fitting as that. I was built to be a space elevator attendant."

"That's quite a difference," the doctor said.

Lumine tried to nod. "I know! And how ridiculous is that, a space elevator attendant? What am I, some monkey in a cute bellhop uniform that presses buttons and acts sweetly for the riders? Ugh."

"I thought you were the head engineer of the Jakob elevator."

"Yeah, which is basically a fancy title for the attendant and the mechanic. I had to do all of the maintenance work by myself, and go on every lift and drop, be polite, helpful, informative, and little more than a tape recording for the passengers who were always humans, rarely if ever reploids. I admit, the science of the elevator was a hard concept for most people to grasp, as they aren't built with a full understanding of physics hardwired into their thought processes.

"And you know who Jakob was? He was the man who funded my creation! He was a billionaire playboy and philanthropist who thought he would inscribe his name forever in history by building and financing such a grandiose and dangerous project, then contracting the best engineers to 'help him' make the most marvelous top-of-the-line reploid that they could produce, simply to run the elevator. And it had an incredibly simple interface program as it was! I could put in every command into it even now if you were to give me the proper input pad."

"A lot of reploids are like that."

"I know. But I'm not like other reploids. Even back then, I wasn't like the others. You see, Jakob made me top of the line, yes, with next gen technology, a copy chip, the most fabulous armor and basic look you could buy. And he gave me full information on every single reploid uploaded into my copy chip: history, personality, likes and dislikes, physical stats, programming quirks, etc, etc… but he gave me absolutely no data on my personality. I had a personality as a baseline operating mode, but I had no information about it whatsoever when I had reams and reams of data on all these other folks that were in my head. So I started acting out the other personalities trying to find my own. Which was a bust, because my baseline personality is bland and flat and so horribly boring. Just a simple minded space elevator attendant was all he was."

"Would you say that you had a multiple personality disorder?" the doctor asked.

"No," Lumine said. "Sure, I had multiple personalities, more than most people who have that disorder have. But they're all actually in quite neat order, filed away in their little data packets, alphabetically, exactly in order. I have a very ordered set of personalities that I draw on for my acting persona now."

"All right. So then, tell me what your average day was like back then."

"Do we really have to?" Lumine asked. When the doctor nodded, he sighed. "All right, if you want to be bored out of your mind. I was. At any rate, cue the flashback swirly effect."

The doctor gave him an odd look as the flashback swirly effect dismissed the current scene.

* * *

Lumine spent the hours between midnight and eight AM checking all the machinery and making sure everything was running properly. Of course, since he did this every day, it basically amounted to spending six minutes doing the actual checking and the rest of the time mindlessly polishing gears and the inside of the elevator so that they were all nice, clean, and sparkly. To pass the time, he set his various other personalities to carrying on great debates and shouting matches inside his head. It was amusing, particularly when he brought Sigma out. Heh, fun fun. But still just a cover for the endless polishing to get all the grimy oily mucky human skin prints off of everything. And their hair, dandruff… ick.

At eight AM, he had to be at the entrance door greeting whoever was coming on the nine AM shoot. Some smiled shallowly and returned his greeting. Others just sniffed and kept moving. Others were grouchy, glaring at him for intruding upon their crabbiness with such polite cheer. Still others were scared unreasonably, looking at him like he might suddenly open fire and kill them all… or at least not have some sanitary wipes available. Others demanded that he carry their luggage, when that was expressly the job of the luggage mechaniloids.

Once everyone was board and the time was right, Lumine would close up the elevator and seal it tight, then do the pre-lift sequences, including speaking the same list of instructions as he did every other time, smiling the whole time and giving helpful gestures. When that was all taken care of, so he would order the elevator to lift off.

There was some time to pass and inevitably, one of the hairy monkeys (actually, humans weren't very hairy for monkeys) would come up to him and ask dumb questions. Like if the elevator was safe. That was so insulting. His whole life and purpose was wrapped up in this space elevator and they dared to claim that it might not be safe?

At times like these, he would often consult his various personalities to see what should be done. The answers were wildly varied, as none of the repoids in his programming were exactly alike. The suggestions would include:

Squish the stupid bugger.

Explain the situation precisely and concisely.

Give such a long explanation that it dissuaded others and/or put them all to sleep.

Act hurt and cry about it, forcing them to make an embarrassing apology.

Give an explanation, with enthusiasm!

Smack forehead for dealing with such an imbecile.

Smack the forehead of said imbecile.

Find out what turned the person on and distract them with the sexiness.

Say that it wasn't his job to explain pointless things.

Just keep smiling and freak them out.

Start doing an Irish jig.

Give the answer in lyrical form.

And so on and so forth. But nearly always, he answered the doubter with the exact same generic reassurances, bland words that said that everything was safe, that they weren't going to get stuck or crash, that he was taking care of them, and that they could trust him. The stupid buggers usually fell for it.

Once they reached the moon, Lumine would give his canned thanks for riding, blah diddy blah blah, and have a good day. They would get the things they had brought on and depart, leaving him to clean and polish up behind them again. He would leave the elevator itself to check on the outer machinery, make sure that the waypoints were acting properly, then set up for the next trip. The return trip usually involved less monkeys and more trash. And then the whole cycle would start up again, at different times, but otherwise the same. He never went on any breaks, he did not allow injuries to keep him from his work for very long, every single lift off and return was excellent, and it was all so mind-numbingly boring that his only outlet was letting his inner personalities duke it out with each other. But he had to appear sane on the outside, so he never let those conflicts show.

* * *

The doctor was listening and taking notes, to his credit. Lumine considered that after this, he may spare this poor sucker to act as his personal bard. "Do you still spend much of your free time letting your personalities clash?"

"Well, some of them cooperate. And there were cliques too, groups of personalities that hang out with each other, constantly agree, and conspire to get other cliques shut down. It happens a lot with the call girls."

"The call girls?"

Lumine snickered. "What, you didn't hear that I was given information on every sort of reploid that there was available at the time of my creation? That included Maverick Hunters, scientists, and bodyguards along with Mavericks, underworld dwellers, and call girls. Really, nearly every reploid in my possession is geared towards violence or sex. There's some that are geared towards other things, like cleaning, mechanics, or service positions. But even they have some part of their programming that dealt in either sex or violence. I know lots of interesting ways to seduce and please anyone, male, female, straight, queer, off beat, brutal, passive, whatever. I can show you if you want, if you'd just come closer. You don't even have to release me."

"No thanks," the doctor said.

"Ah, one of the sort that believes personal affairs shouldn't mix with professional. Admirable, to some. But such a spread of abilities and similarities among reploids, the creation of mankind… well it says something very interesting about humans, hm? A lot of them would like to blow each other up, or do it more intimately with anyone, but they feel that they morally can't. So they make us to do those things for them. I think it's subconscious, although there's quite a few that I know were consciously made like that."

"So you have no qualms about sex or violence?"

"Of course not. Not when I know so many ways of doing both."

"All right. Now then, what made you decide to create that scheme with Sigma and the Jakob elevator?"

"Well can't you guess? It was the mind dulling tedium when I was the most intelligent reploid at the time. Simple and utter boredom. Also, I got to really not like humans, being made to be so absolutely polite and bland with them, cleaning up their messes, and dealing with their idiocies. And in my mental matches, Sigma was doing quite well for being such an old X replica. I suppose that's why he survived as long as he did; that and his wacky viral powers. I wanted some excitement and I sure found it."

"Then you contacted Sigma himself?"

Lumine tried to shake his head, but could only manage it a bit. "No. He got messed up some time in the fifth war. If you think about it, he actually won that time, even though he died again. He had viruses spread all over the world and had driven the humans into hiding. If the Mavericks had thought of it, they could have torched the underground shelters and killed all the humans. And a good deal of reploids, yes, but they had the engineers to build more that could survive the harsh wasteland. But the Hunters must have done something extra to him that time. Every time he has been summoned since, he's been a pathetic shadow of himself even if he seemed decent."

"Then how did you set up the eighth Maverick War?"

"And why should I tell you that?" he dared.

The doctor didn't even pause. "Well you want to leave behind a true history of what happened, don't you? All we know is what the Hunters have told the world."

"Ah, that is an excellent idea. I think you would make a nice bard for me, or a historian." Smiling, he closed his eyes. "Well I didn't start with the Mavericks. I started with my own kin, the next-gens." He chuckled, then looked back to the doctor. "Time for another flashback?"

* * *

The first of his kin that he contacted were two guys who did maintenance work on the lunar communities, making sure they stayed habitable for the humans. He knew them as Steve and Nathan, next-gens who always stayed in the form of lunar reploids. While most reploids could handle the harsh environment of the moon, the lunars were made specifically for it.

Lumine came up to them in his base form. "Hello, brothers," he said in his usual soft politeness. "May I speak with you for a time?"

"Sure bro," Nathan said.

"Yeah dude," Steve added.

As with other times that he had seen them, they were both using a form of a tall thin humanoid. A system of jets on their backs allowed them to move about the low-atmosphere rapidly, as well as hover in place for jobs that needed it. To Lumine's eye, it wasn't an attractive look; then again, a lot of them were that way. "I've been considering the direction that our kind should be headed. Have you explored the forms available to your Copy Chips?"

"Um, this one works well enough," Nathan said. "A couple others are for certain jobs, and we don't need the rest. I think."

"There's too many to look through, dude," Steve said.

It was as he suspected. Lumine knew each and every one of his forms because he let their personalities debate all the time. The rest of the next-gen reploids didn't know what they were capable off. Yet another burden of being intelligent. "There are some great ones inside you," he said. "Try form 13013."

"Dude? Why that one? It's a terrestrial."

He nodded. "Just try it."

Steve looked to Nathan, who shrugged and made the transformation. In a moment, he appeared as a muscular male humanoid with distinctive facial markings and a bald head. He looked over his hands, which were larger than he usually used. "Whoa, bro! This form has some massive strength… and there's something weird about it. What's this?" He summoned a black orb of energy, which flew out towards Lumine.

Having expected this possibility, he formed a shield to catch the orb. It belonged to one of his many forms, but he had figured out how to use powers in his baseline form. "A ranged attack," Lumine explained, as calm and patient as he was with the elevator riders. "This is Sigma. This copy contains the Maverick virus. However, it can only be active while in Sigma's form. So it does not drive you insane, since you can always switch out and silence it. I recommend you don't stay in it long. But it does open your mind to interesting possibilities."

Nathan swapped back to his thin lunar form. "Huh. That could be something to experiment with. Thanks bro."

He nodded. "You aren't restricted in what you can do. I'm just making sure that you know of this. Be careful who you tell."

* * *

There was a buzz, interrupting Lumine's flashback and making him glare. The doctor checked his cell phone. "Excuse me, but I've got to go take care of something right now. We'll have to put this interview on hold briefly."

"Fine, take care of your earthly duties. I can wait." Lumine smirked. "But before you come back in here, make sure to remember something to protect your mind from my insanity-inducing presence. I don't want to lose a potential worker like I have before."

"I'll remember that." The psychiatrist took his now empty water glass and left the room.

Lumine watched him go, then thought over things.

* * *

Back in the observation room, the psychiatrist met with the officer. "What is it?"

"How long is this going to take?" The officer glanced to the clock. "We do have other things to do."

"I don't know," the psychiatrist said. "I'm trying to earn his trust right now so that he'll speak honestly. He certainly has no problems speaking freely."

"I can tell. So what do you think of him so far?"

He looked at the screen, which showed Lumine seemingly asleep. "His ego is as big as his insanity."

* * *

_This Lumine is great fun to let ramble. When I get time, I'll let him go on about the game he was in. From his initial suggestions, it might involve a crack ship, so be warned if you decide to watch this story._


	2. Chapter 2

When the doctor came back in, he was wearing a dark green helmet on his head and a black armored vest under his white lab coat. "Sorry about the interruption," he said, sitting back near the table. "But please, let's continue."

Lumine nodded slightly, then lifted his fingers some as one of the few movements he could do. "All right. I suppose that gear should preserve you from my all-powerful mind. Although if I wasn't feeling so sporting, I could crack both of those, without moving."

"I'm aware of that. So you were telling me about contacting your fellow next-gen reploids to make them ore aware of what they could do."

"Right. As I mentioned before, my job didn't really require all that much work, so I had time to leave for an hour or two to meet with them." He snorted. "Sorry, but I must admit that I was disappointed in them. I knew that I had been made to be intelligent, but I didn't realize just how much more intelligent until I started talking to them. Unless you were talking about the particular area of expertise that they had been made for, they never thought much about anything. I know we were all young at the time and we were still finding out about ourselves and the world. But I found it just ridiculous.

"Oh, and you know about how I can speak with my personalities and ask them for advice? As it turns out, they couldn't! Most of them only knew about one or two of the forms that they could use; even more were squeamish about using a gender opposite of the one they had been assigned. I like being unique and all, but I still don't get why I had been made this way only to be given such a mundane and low-class position! I've mostly gotten over that, since that is how I managed to turn myself into a physical god. Still, it's amazing to me how some people can do utterly idiotic things and still survive."

"That can be a mystery," the doctor replied. "Since you were disappointed in your kin, is that why you brought in the Mavericks?"

"Sort of," Lumine said. "By the time that I convinced the others to help me make a stand against humanity, I had come up with a plan that involved a thousand Sigmas." He shrugged some. "Well not exactly a thousand, since we next gens barely numbered a hundred at the time. I was going to use personal teleporters, my kin, a mechaniloid virus, and careful timing to have it appear that Sigma was attacking hundreds of spots around the world over the course of one day. By the time the Maverick Hunter mobilized to one location, we would have already moved on to spring another attack. It was more for wide-spread damage and chaos than anything, plus stirring up any opportunistic hell raisers along the way.

"After that, we would start using other famous reploids for more attacks. For instance, a lot of cities have local heroes or celebrities that are reploids. We would mimic them and cause more chaos. The end result would be that no one could be sure who was who anymore. Your friend, your significant other, your boss, your co-workers, anyone could be one of us, about to bring trouble. Especially once we made the breakthrough to mimicking humans perfectly. That would have been quite that event, huh?"

The doctor nodded. "Yes, it would have caused a lot of chaos."

Lumine smiled. "See? I knew it was a great plan. But, well, things got changed. It all started one day when something actually went wrong with the Jakob elevator. It would be nice if it had been a big dramatic issue, as that would make for a great story, but no. It was nothing big, but still an accident that disrupted my usual schedule. Let me show you."

* * *

He had been watching the descent to Earth, although the elevator was still far from the atmosphere. Just ahead, there was one of the rings that made up the path from the Earth to the moon. The trips had to happen at specific times, using the gravity and movements of both bodies to ensure an efficient trip could be made. Those rings acted as a kind of rail, pulling at the elevator ship, then pushing it on line to the next. Since the rings used solar panels for their power, less fuel was needed to move the elevator.

But right as the ship passed through the ring, there was a thump. Lumine broke out of his internal musings and went right to the control console. "We hit the ring, right?"

"That is correct," the computer replied. "The elevator has broken out of its flight path as a result." It displayed an image of the projected path alongside their current path. If it continued, he would crash into the ocean, making it the first big accident he had had. Certainly the one the media would pounce on.

Lumine glanced around. There were no passengers this time, just him and some cargo. In the meantime, he was calculating. "Activate the secondary jets and their engines. To…" he looked back to the images, then gave it a list of numbers to nudge them back on the correct course.

It worked out perfectly, exactly as it did in his training missions. Lumine then asked for reports about the ring they had hit along with the one prior. While it wasn't too hard to prevent a potential crash like this, he wanted to avoid any problems whatsoever.

Back on the ground, Lumine emerged, letting the cargo workers unload the elevator. He examined what damage the ship had taken. Nothing vital, but he wasn't going to let those scrapes stay on his elevator. It was still the focus of his life, even if it was a boring one. After instructing some mechaniloids to repair that damage, he went to the office building nearby.

He wasn't here too often, actually. Because he spent much of his time with the elevator, he hadn't explored around the whole Galapagos facility lately. Lumine still knew where he was going, the manager's office. He politely knocked on the door even though a few of his personalities offered to knock the thing aside with pure force. Or burn it, if the fake wood panel would burn.

He got called into the fancy office after affirming his identity. The manager of the Galapagos base had quite the show of wealth in here, including a water fountain, an elaborate light piece, and a designer desk topped with black granite. But of course, the manager was a human. He waved for Lumine to sit down. "Ah, good to see you around, Lumine. I had wanted to chat with you anyhow."

"I'm here on business," he stated.

"Of course you are. But we've noticed you taking leave quite a lot lately to visit others. It's nice that you're being sociable, but don't let it interfere with your job." From the way he said it, he probably didn't mean it to be condescending.

Lumine still felt like it was. How dare he suggest that he would neglect the elevator? He spent so much time making sure it ran smoothly and looked beautiful. For a moment, it was tempting to turn into one of the thugs and smack him silly. But it was much too early for a move like that. Instead, he kept his voice calm and steady. "I don't. I came here to inform you that I will be canceling the next trip to the moon, possibly the one after that too."

"Why?" the manager asked, turning a touch hostile. "We've got full flight booking for both trips and we'd have to refund all that money. Not to mention the fuss about our reliability that will come up if two get canceled in a row."

I know what I'm doing, Lumine thought to himself. But he kept his own hostility under guard. "The elevator got knocked into Ring 17 on the way back. It and Ring 18 require immediate attention. If I hadn't corrected the flight path, I would have ended up landing in the ocean just now. I will have to use 18 going and coming on both trips, so the consequences will be much more expensive than simple refunds. Besides, I'm not about to fly in unsafe conditions, especially not with passengers."

The manager looked at him for a moment, then nodded. "Fine, I'll make the announcements. But do try to get those repairs done so that we only have to cancel one."

"I will take what time is needed," Lumine said, then bowed. "Thank you." Then he left for the maintenance area.

Repairing the ring in the space between the Earth and the moon required remotely controlling mechaniloids that were left with the rings for that purpose. After unlocking the door to the area, Lumine descended the counterweight shaft. This was designed to catch the counterweight that launched the elevator out of Earth's gravity; it was currently in the upper atmosphere, held in place by a heavy-duty anti-gravity platform. The shaft went down a long ways, due to the distance required to catch the counterweight safely.

However, there didn't seem to be anyone else in the maintenance area. This caused concern to Lumine. There should be some workers here, also making sure that everything was running smoothly. If they weren't working, or worse, had been fired, then Lumine would have to go back and give a stern talking to the base manager. He might have to swap to another personality for that. His baseline one was much too polite and calm for that.

In the room with the remote space repair controller, he finally ran into others. Although it was quite dim, there was just enough light for him to see them by. But they weren't the usual workers, at least not as Lumine remembered. One was another next-gen that he knew of, but had not met yet: Dark Mantis, a technology worker from another facility. He worked at the computers while keeping his long curved blades back. The other one he didn't immediately recognize, a tall humanoid model that had green and yellow armor covering his entire body, save for a large red shoulder cannon that was currently held vertically.

Although Dark Mantis was muttering to himself, not noticing anything, the other immediately noticed and turned to Lumine. The guy had a helmet that only had a T shaped opening, which itself only revealed one glowing red eye. Then he knew who it was, a reploid criminal and Maverick. Vile was one reploid that he knew he didn't have among his many personalities. So while Lumine was concerned that the equipment might get destroyed, he was immensely curious about this renegade.

"You're earlier than we expected," Vile said.

"What do you mean?" Dark Mantis asked, then finally noticed him when he turned to Vile.

Lumine came up to them. His Sigma personality advised him not to show fear, because then Vile would think poorly of him. "There was an error on my return trip," he said. "I came to address the issue." He glanced over the screens; there were so many things that were out of acceptable range now. "Would you please move aside? I need to correct much of this mess you have caused."

"What mess?" Mantis asked, glaring at him. "I'm taking control of this; you ought to be glad of a break."

"This is my elevator and I'm not going to let anyone damage it. I've had to cancel two flights because of what error has already cropped up. I will be quite disappointed if I must cancel any more."

"Let him deal with it," Vile said.

He glared for a moment, then got out of the chair so Lumine could take over. It seemed like Mantis had been trying to redirect the path of the elevator, but was not quite sure which rings would need moving. If he meant to take the ship anywhere else, that would require building more rings for a pathway. Lumine started resetting the rings to their usual path.

"We don't know if he will be in with us," Mantis hissed quietly to Vile. Lumine thought briefly of making a comment that he could hear that, but kept working instead.

"No, we don't." He rapped the back of the chair. "I've heard that you've been going around encouraging others with copy powers to try out different forms. In particular, Sigma's."

Lumine nodded. "It somehow got organized into the standard set that all the Copy Chips were made with, save for a handful of early models. I wanted to let the others know that they did not have to be restrained to what they were made to be."

Mantis snorted. "You're the one encouraging them to do that? You've worked constantly at this elevator and have never shown any inclination to step out of line."

"Because those who step out of line too far are noticed," he replied. "I haven't got anything planned out very far, so I'm keeping quiet."

"And what do you plan to do?" Vile asked.

He shrugged. "Maybe kick all the humans off the moon and set up a community there. I'm not too fond of Earth."

He seemed to find it amusing. "Neither are we," he replied. "Which is why we intend on building a whole new world and blowing up the old one. It's one plan of Sigma's that I can really agree with. Interested?"

"That does seem like an intriguing engineering puzzle," he replied, although not confirming or denying any further involvement. "I will consider the offer provided you ask me for further use of the Jakob elevator, not attempt it on your own."

* * *

The doctor was taking notes, as usual. When Lumine paused, he asked, "So that was ultimately their plan?"

"Certainly," Lumine said. "And I did work with them when they started setting up base on the moon. That wasn't too hard, just arranging their cargo to be loaded onto each flight following that meeting. And without raising suspicion. I classified them as building supplies, which is what they were for the most part. And since there were still projects for the human communities, no one batted an eye at the extra cargo. We even smuggled some reploids up there by transporting them in crates." He chuckled. "That sure improved my mood back then. The ones that seemed sharp-minded, non-threatening, and nice, I was willing to let on as a passenger. But the others, oh, sorry, you've got to go by crate. And then I would amuse myself by mentally telling the dumber human passengers, 'Well I could stuff you in a crate too for the rest of the trip'. I never actually said it aloud, but it was satisfying."

"Right. Then when did you decide to take over their plans?"

"Almost right from the start. Vile gave me the plans willingly, as my assistance was necessary for things to work." He rolled his eyes. "I expected much better out of Sigma, after the way his personality acted in my head. That plan… the blowing up Earth part, that would have worked. They had everything they needed to do that, although I have a feeling that the ones like Vile who were in it for the big booms would have been disappointed in how fast it would have been over. But the making a new world part? Yeah, no way."

"Why is that?" the doctor asked, looking curious.

"Lack of materials, for one. Sure, there is stuff around that can be made into other stuff in space, if you pardon my lack of scientific accuracy. But there's not enough of it. Matter and energy cannot be destroyed or created spontaneously. There wouldn't be a moment of, bam, instant planet. No, after you blew up the world, you would have to pull all the material back together again, difficult when it's a massive dust and rubble cloud out in space. And that's not even considering what effect the destruction of Earth would have on the moon. Worst case scenario there is that the moon gets thrown like a stone from a sling directly into the sun, potentially causing a premature explosion of the sun. If the Mavericks had survived the destruction of Earth, they would not survive the destruction of the sun. Epic fail."

"That it would be," he agreed.

Lumine seemed like he was trying to shrug. "That's a low probability event, but possible. Anyhow, they would have to be controlling gravity on a wide scale with little to nothing to base a gravitational field generator on. They would have to monitor the consolidation of their new planet so that it didn't spontaneously destroy itself. And then it would be centuries or even longer before the new planet would be life-sustaining and comfortable. It would actually be shorter overall to just leave out the total destruction of Earth and instead raze its surface, focusing on redevelopment. I knew pretty quickly that I would rather the Hunters stop them."

"Then why did you continue going along with it."

Momentarily, the prisoner looked uncomfortable. "Part of me still believed in Sigma. I thought this had to be a diversion, and that something else was his real plan. He was definitely a personality I favored, even though I had to be careful to keep it contained. But I think a bigger part of it was that I was fascinated by Vile. Going along with the Mavericks kept him close to me."

"You were fascinated by Vile?"

"Certainly. He was more or less running things while Sigma was being rebuilt, so I ended up talking with him a lot. He was always so certain of himself. Vile never bothered to be polite and did whatever he wanted; he often told me about how he disobeyed even Sigma freely, but was always called back because he was so good at causing mayhem and destruction. I wanted that man's DNA so that I could have a part of him that was mine forever."

"I see."

Lumine's expression seemed upset. "But remember what I told you about reploids all being based in sex or violence? He was all violence. Maybe when he started out, he'd been more balanced, but when I had met him, he was all about destruction. That was all he cared about, so I couldn't get as close to him as I had hoped for. But I could… sort of befriend him. I asked him to train me to fight better during my downtime on the moon."

"Did he agree to do so?"

"It took some convincing. He first said that part of the big plan relied on me remaining a non-combatant. But, he had no respect for non-combatants. At least I wasn't a pacifist, as that would have reminded him of X, which would have made him dislike me on principle. I told him that I really wanted to learn to fight so that I wasn't just another bystander, too meek to do anything. That impressed him, so he agreed." He smiled at that. "Good times, those were, even though I never got anywhere with seducing him. The best I could do was appeal to his love of destruction, although I drew the line at the elevator. I still saw it as being mine, my main focus in life. And it was my job that brought Vile to me. I even started making plans to draw him from Sigma's side to mine."

"How would you have done that?"

He chuckled. "Easy enough, and I already told you. Once he realized that the whole Earth would go ka-boom in one shot and then all the destruction was over, Vile would have defected. And if I told him that I'd rather raze the surface to start again, he would join me as that would be a longer period of destruction. But then Sigma started putting his plan into motion before I got the nerve to bring mine up, or iron out the details. That's when the whole thing got started to the world and when I finally met the Maverick leader in person."

"How did that meeting go?"

Lumine glowered. "It was a terrible disappointment. Let me show you…"

* * *

It was just another flight from the Earth to the moon. There was a mixed crowd of humans today, no reploids. Over time, there were getting to be fewer children coming. Lumine had noticed that, recalling how early flights had been packed with women and children, but lately it had been an even mix of genders with a handful of kids. That did please him, as the kids usually were most annoying, messy, noisy, fussy, and irritating. There were five children today.

He gave his usual end of flight spiel as the elevator came to its resting place. "Again, don't forget any of your luggage that you have brought in hand. I hope you have enjoyed your trip on the Jakob Orbital Elevator. Have a good day." Even though a day meant a whole different length of time here on the moon, it was part of the standard speech.

Then the passengers started getting up to retrieve their things as the door opened. Through there, he saw one of the Mavericks waiting in place of the usual attendant. Was it time already? Not quite, as the humans were allowed to leave before they entered.

And Vile was with them, although he came fifteen minutes later to avoid the humans. With him came a large robotic crab. "We're ready to commence our attack," Vile said, sounding eager for action. "We'll head back to the surface, wait a couple of hours to get the others coordinated, then this fellow," he patted the crab, "is going to help me cause a ruckus at the Galapagos base. You should call in the Maverick Hunters, help them out a bit, then I'm going to step in and kidnap you. As we've discussed before."

Lumine nodded. "Yes, of course. But what's to stop them from rescuing me immediately? I've been thinking on that; they would be on the grounds and the others won't be attacking yet."

"I'll handle it," he replied, confident. "I've improved myself since they last fought me. They won't stand a chance at getting you."

"Okay, I trust you. Let me work on preparation for the flight back." He turned to the control console and started his job. As much as he would have preferred to keep talking with Vile, it really wasn't much use and might annoy him. Lumine wouldn't let his feelings show, though. Vile would see that as a weakness.

Much later, they were all at the Galapagos base. The Crab-Y was wreaking havoc outside, forcing all the humans to evacuate. Lumine went along with Sigma's plan, pretending to assist the Maverick Hunters X, Zero, and Axl who had come to handle the crab; he had called in that it showed possible signs of an active Maverick infection. As for his own plans, this fit in too, although he would have liked something even more dramatic.

Then Vile kidnapped him. The nice part about that is that he was holding onto Lumine while threatening to kill him if the Hunters didn't back off immediately. The bad part about it was that it didn't last long. In fact, Vile didn't even go back to the moon with him; instead, he sent Lumine along with the other operator who was going to be flying the elevator while he was gone.

On the flight up, he sat by one of the windows, listening to his more sympathetic female personalities trying to console him. He certainly wouldn't be the first one left out in the cold because of a war-minded reploid. But he still might have time to get his loyalty. The whole while, he didn't bother speaking to his replacement. That reploid could fly the elevator, but was nowhere near as smart as Lumine was.

Back on the moon, Lumine was escorted to Sigma's fortress by several thuggish Mavericks. Technically, they were new generation reploids like him. But they had neglected his warnings to be careful of the Maverick personalities, to make sure that they kept the virus contained. So, they were Mavericks themselves, controlled more by it then their own wills. That annoyed him. Then again, he was letting himself be constrained by his baseline personality.

The fortress was designed to be dangerous to get around, to frustrate the expected intruders. Lumine got through by riding a small hovertruck with a guide who knew the way around. "Wouldn't it be better to not be found at all?" he asked.

"The Maverick Hunters will always find us," the guide said. "So we simply anticipate them and make the way in as dangerous as possible."

That wouldn't make for a work-friendly or efficient base of operations, Lumine thought. Maybe Sigma kept the important things, like the place he regenerated at, more secret and less obviously evil. And that thought reassured Lumine that Sigma had to have some other plan in store. If the Maverick leader really were to blow up the world, he'd lose many of his resources if he wasn't careful.

When he finally met with Sigma himself, the Maverick leader was sitting on a large elaborate metal throne and reading off a handheld datapad. He appeared relaxed and unconcerned about things, which concerned Lumine greatly. Shouldn't he be directing the attacks on Earth? Or was he just confident in Vile to handle things? "Hello, Sigma," Lumine said, walking up to the throne.

He tilted the tablet away and looked at him. Sigma didn't seem too impressed. "Who are you again?"

"Lumine, sir, the lead engineer and operator of the Jakob Orbital Elevator. Vile sent me back up here to keep me out of the Hunters' reach."

Then Sigma smiled. "Right, you're the little one who got the other next-gen reploids to trust us, by telling them that we weren't that dangerous. Quite the nerve you have. I'd thank you, but it seems that you're trying to set me up." He then tossed the datapad aside, activating his plasma blade. "I don't take well to threats to my authority," he said darkly.

"I'm not trying to take over from you," Lumine said, keeping his voice sounding calm. He had so much practice doing that with the humans that it was completely natural. "I was merely trying to broaden their horizons, get them to account for other possibilities. I had no idea that you were truly around still until Vile told me so."

Sigma got up. "I don't believe you. You're not opening yourself to the words of the virus. You're spreading new ideas when you should know that I am the authority over all reploids and only my ideas and plans count. I am the true master of this world! I can destroy it and make it anew if that is what I so wish. And that is what will happen. I am not going to let any obstacle get in my way, whether it's a traitorous Maverick Hunter or a little squirt like you."

At that point, Sigma's personality in Lumine's head gave his thoughts. 'If he is paranoid, he shouldn't be revealing it immediately. Either he's nuts or he's testing you.'

Lumine bowed his head meekly, keeping that in mind. "I see… I had been looking forward to meeting you, as the copy I have of you is one that I favor. I had not expected you to distrust me. But, if it is so…"

"You were looking forward to this?" Sigma said, no longer threatening.

"Yes, I was," Lumine confirmed. "You seemed so much smarter and practical than the rest."

"Then why haven't you become fully infected yet?"

"I've had to work with humans every single day, sir. I couldn't blow my cover even in being a sympathizer. Besides, I've been designed to run and maintain space vessels. I believe that you would need me in coming days, so it may not be wise to take me out."

"Right, and the others don't seem to be able to take your place fully," he said to himself. Then he grinned and shut off his weapon. "Splendid, always good to meet a devotee. I can tell you about my plans for enslaving the humans up here on the moon, once we blow up the Earth of course. We have a glorious future for all reploids right at our fingertips, and your generation is going to be the keys to that success. Would you care for some pink lemonade?"

Lumine felt like something wasn't quite right. "That would be nice, the lemonade I mean," he said. "But…"

"Great! Hey slave-bot, get an extra chair for our elevator pilot and two glasses of pink lemonade. With sugar and ice this time!"

Coming closer to the throne, Lumine studied Sigma. He seemed to be in a great mood, excited for what was going on. Taking a deep breath, Lumine tried again. "Sigma sir, you really are going to blow the Earth up? You do realize that it's going to affect everyone on the moon too? Because the moon will go loose in space, captive to the sun's gravitational pull. Not to mention that a force strong enough to take out Earth could damage us here, mostly through debris."

"Nah, we'll be fine here when the Earth goes," Sigma replied dismissively. "It'll just keep rotating where it is. We can keep the moon; it's the planet itself that I don't like."

"Physics doesn't work quite like that," he pointed out.

Sigma slammed his fist down on the throne. "I'm in charge and my plan is going to work out how I plan it! My will will see to it that things go exactly how I envision them."

'He's nuts,' Sigma's voice in Lumine's head said.

Lumine had to agree.

* * *

"I tried for the next hour or so to see if he was still testing me," Lumine told the doctor. "But no, he really was serious about blowing up the Earth and ignoring what scientific formulas said might happen. I asked if his fortress was capable of entering space; only parts of it could take off from the moon. Then I asked if he had built a space station for everyone to live on while they were forming the new world. But no, he said that would happen after they got rid of the old world. And if I asked too many questions, he'd threaten me for challenging his authority again. I had to speak quite delicately there to avoid getting killed and he stated himself that they needed me. Ridiculous."

"That does seem like very poor planning," the doctor agreed.

"Doesn't it? Now see, in my case, I actually am a god. So if I want something to happen, bam, it's going to happen. Sigma was powerful, I'll give him that, but he wasn't a god." Lumine chuckled, grinning at the doctor. "I'm still just toying with you guys. The universe is wrapped around my little finger. I only came back here for old times sake."

"It is interesting to hear your side of things. So back to the Eighth War, did you have any direct influence on what was going on?"

"No, I was playing a good little prisoner," Lumine said in a mocking tone. "I did, however, attempt to contact Vile and convince him that this destruction could not last, that it might end up in all of us being destroyed. But when he called in to report, he just bragged about how much havoc was being caused and how dimwitted humanity was being, not recognizing what they were intending to do. He never seemed interested in talking to me either, even if I offered to tell him how I was doing in combat practice. He wasn't interested back in me, which was upsetting to deal with." His tone had turned somber as he kept talking about Vile. "Sometimes I think that I want to go back and change that, making him loyal to me even if I have to change his very nature to do it.

"But how to do that without ruining what made him so fascinating to me, I don't know that way. And even when he came back to the moon base, he still didn't care that much for me. No, he was too focused on X and the other two Hunters, who had followed him up there. Such foolishness, bringing your enemy into your base of operations. If I was completely in charge of that fool plan, well, it would have been a lot different. More sensible."

"I'm starting to see how that's right. Did you involve anyone else in your plans to subvert Sigma?"

He made a motion of shaking his head. "No. I tried, but as I said, it didn't work with Vile and my fellow next-gens had fallen prey to the Maverick virus. They weren't getting what I was telling them, that we could be Maverick at will, using the extra power when we needed it, using its ideas to break free of our limitations, but then keeping it secluded and controlled so that it did not control us. They kept telling me to open myself to it, but I wanted to get it to open up for me to use fully. About the only good thing was that I kept Sigma's paranoia from getting centered on me, so that he was surprised."

"it's good that you could do that. So then, what happened when the Maverick Hunters raided the moon base?"

"What one would expect," Lumine replied. "X defeated Vile. I was hurt by that, I'll admit, as I still cared about him. But Vile pretended to be fully defeated in order to snatch Axl away and keep the trio separated. I did follow that battle more than the progress of the other two, even if they were closer to where I was. I wasn't concerned. In fact, I still wasn't planning on fighting them."

"You weren't?"

"Of course not. I felt as though I needed more time; I realized that I hadn't fully broken free of my imposed limitations and that I didn't want to be connected to such a ridiculous plan. I was going to simply let them rescue me, act grateful, and even allow them to scan me over for infection. Get their trust, I thought, and then abuse it right under their noses while never breaking it. That would be ideal. But things changed."

"What changed exactly?"

Lumine looked angered again. "Well Axl," he spat out the name as if it were bitter, "destroyed Vile. I already didn't like the guy. I mean, he's supposedly the only active prototype of the next-gen design, but he is even more of an individual than I am. I didn't start out with information on Axl, even though I had information and personalities of other next-gens! And he went whole hog into the Maverick Hunters, not even considering that there might be a way to safely tap into the Maverick's power thanks to the Copy Chip. Then he went and killed Vile.

"I saw it too, as I had been watching through a security feed. X just wore Vile down until he collapsed. But Axl, he…" his arm restraints chinked as he was trying to make a demonstration with his hands. Lumine glared at it, but then went back to his story, "Vile had full body armor and supposedly, no one's ever seen what he looks like inside it. And his helmet nearly covers his face, leaving just a T-shaped hole that still manages to hide his face. It's not very big, that opening. Axl looked like he was barely taking time to aim, but he put three bullets through that helmet opening, from several feet away. And he seemed so proud at having destroyed Vile. I spent several minutes trying to convince myself that going in quietly would be better. I might even get a shot at taking out Axl without drawing alarm.

"And then, X and Zero got to Sigma. Sigma started talking about us next-gens as his children and," he grimaced, "that just made me snap! Yes, I was learning from his philosophy, and it makes sense that it had to be a Maverick who got Sigma's DNA implanted in all forms of the Copy Chip, save for that hyperactive prototype. But the way he said it, and me realizing that the one I had looked up to was insane and the one I admired could never admire me back… the Maverick virus made an attack on my mind at that time, during the initial conflict with Sigma. It tried to bring me into its control. But I wasn't about to let it, not after I had contained it for so long.

"But I also wasn't going to stand by my bland and overly polite baseline personality anymore. So when Sigma's body was destroyed and he was about to make his usual moves to keep his mind and personality going, I stepped in. I absorbed that data and I darn well made sure to lock it down in its own confined space until I had the time to tamper with it. By that point, Axl had rejoined the other two and I, being young, stupid, and overly full of myself, I challenged all three of them.

"I had been trained by Vile. I had made some modifications to myself too, figuring out how to swap pieces of other forms between each other so that I could have the best bits of many while keeping my general distinctive form. My rage was working for and against me. I let the virus from the generic Sigma DNA data activate itself in my systems. Yet that still wasn't enough. I even made sure to send a major attack directly at Axl and smash his forehead crystal, to take him out of the battle, and that still wasn't enough. I was defeated and it took quick thinking in order to preserve my life."

The doctor watched him as Lumine trembled, unable to move due to his restraints. Given a moment, he carefully asked, "Do you want some time to calm down?"

The prisoner gave him a sharp look. "That would be wise of you to give me," he hissed. "Otherwise I might end up making your head implode despite your protections."

Nodding, he got up, taking his things again. "All right. I'll be back in a short while."

* * *

Back in the observation room, the doctor set up the monitoring program to watch Lumine's stress level. It would help judge when he had calmed down enough for the interview to continue. For a minute, he was alone. Then the officer came back into the room. "Something happen?"

"We got to his battle on the moon against the three Hunters," the doctor said. "I've giving him some time to cool off after that."

"I see. He mentioned Redips, so we have to extend this out to his involvements in the Giga City conflicts."

The doctor nodded. "I had planned on that. Also, it may be late to ask this, but…" he looked at the screen showing Lumine in his restraint chair, "You do have his copy powers canceled out, right? Because we set that chair to hold onto a small-frame reploid when he has DNA on much larger and more physically strong reploids. He could potentially break out just by morphing."

"We have neutralized the Copy Chip," the officer said. "Really, you thought we hadn't considered that possibility?"

"I just had to check," he replied. "For my own nerves, actually."

* * *

_I didn't expect to ship Lumine and Vile, even one-way. But once I started playing with the idea, it seemed fun and fitting. Besides, it brought in a line which would be hilariously dirty out-of-context._

_I looked over a lot of information on X8 for writing this part. Of course, you have to keep in mind who's telling this story. There's nothing that would force Lumine to tell the truth._

_On the moon being slung into the sun and making it explode... I don't know if that's what would really happen. But it sounds cools.  
_


End file.
